


Impact.

by missmagoo



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Hale Fire, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Cliffhangers, Crazy Kate Argent, Depression, Derek blames himself for Kate's crazy, Eventual Sterek, F/M, Soulmates, Statutory Rape, Suicidal Thoughts, incompetent mountain man Derek Hale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-18 14:59:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4710179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmagoo/pseuds/missmagoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a bunch of tumblr posts I made a few months back that went something like this:<br/>Ok, but what if Kate Argent and Derek Hale were actually soulmates?<br/>What if Kate saw this beautiful boy with his too big ears and his beautiful eyes and her mark on his arm, and she was so utterly pleased right up until she learned he was a werewolf?<br/>What if learning that her soulmate was a beast, a lowly animal, a dangerous abomination she has been trained to hunt, drove her into a rage, and that’s why she burned the Hale house, thinking that Derek was inside?<br/>What if she was dragged to prison, raging and screaming about how she would not suffer some monster for a soulmate, and the whole tawdry story was spread through Beacon Hills like so much salacious gossip?<br/>What if Derek lost his entire family because of a mark on his arm and a woman who couldn’t stand the idea of loving him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Derek is sixteen when he meets his soulmate. Sixteen, and unbelievably naive.

He’s popular in school, athletic and handsome and just the right level of smart to fit in with the cool kids. He’s cocky, and like most cocky sixteen year old boys, he likes to show off.

Specifically, he likes to show off his soul mark. Soul marks can look like anything, and most look like a sort of rorschach ink blot. There’s shapes to be found if you squint, if you look from just the right angle, but mostly they just look like a random blotch that people spend their lives memorizing the curves of so they can recognize it when they finally see the matching mark on someone else.

Derek, though, Derek is lucky. Because his soul mark is absolutely, undeniably the silhouette of a wolf howling at the moon. (Howling for his mate, Derek has always liked to think.)

And a soul mark that cool just has to be shown off, so Derek does whenever he can. He never turns down an invitation to swim, develops a habit of lifting his shirt to wipe sweat from his brow when he works out, and can be reliably counted on to play for the skins team of any shirts v. skins pickup game.

He's playing basketball when he meets Kate. The wolf on his ribs is glistening with sweat, along with his hard-won six pack. He can't stop himself from showing off a little when he first sees her watching the game, this beautiful older woman who simply oozes sophistication and sex appeal.

He hogs the ball, does some showy trick dribbling, before slipping right past the other team's defence and dunking the ball easily.

He swaggers over to her, a cocky grin on his face because he knows she's been watching him.

"Hi, cutie," She purrs when he gets near. "Nice mark you've got there. I've got one just like it. Wanna see?"

And when a beautiful older woman who's basically just admitted to being his soulmate offers to take her shirt off for him, well, what sixteen year old boy wouldn't follow her home?

 

* * *

 

The thing about soulmates is that they're incredibly misunderstood.

Generally speaking, when a person hears "soulmate" they think of true love and two people who are meant to spend happily ever after together, but that's not what a soulmate is.

A soulmate, technically speaking, is the one person on this earth who will have the greatest and most lasting impact on your life. And because the universe loves balance, you will have the greatest and most lasting impact on their life in return.

Most people love to focus on the romance of soulmates who become couples, but in truth there are a great number of platonic soulmates in the world. Most twins are each other's soulmates, and it’s not uncommon for soulmates to be siblings or best friends. There are even occasionally recorded cases of parent and child soulmates.

But what all the most common types of soulmates have in common is that they are relationships of love and support, no matter what type of love it is. Soulmates, almost universally, love each other unconditionally.

That's why Derek never suspects Kate for a moment.

She takes him to her apartment, pushes him down onto the bed, and winks at him before peeling off her top to show off a soul mark in the shape of a wolf howling at the moon, a perfect match to Derek’s mark.

Derek frantically toes off his shoes and shucks his basketball shorts while Kate continues her strip show, wiggling out of her skinny jeans with a seductive shimmy of her hips to reveal a lacy thong that matches her bra.

Then the bra comes off, showing off Kate's perfect, perky breasts. Derek stares at them, mesmerized by the way they bounce as she takes off her thong and crawls up the bed toward him.

She straddles his hips, smirking down at him as she lifts one of his hands to cup her breast.

His other hand comes up to touch her ribs, reverently stroking the soul mark.

He thinks as she rides him about how lucky he is to be losing his virginity to his soul mate. It’s not that he’s inexperienced - he’s dated and kissed people and had hand jobs and blow jobs (though admittedly not nearly as frequently as he’s happily let the school rumor mill believe) - but it's his first time having real sex, and it’s with his soulmate.

He’s not stupid, he knows this isn't Kate's first time. She's older, more worldly, and the way she moves on top of him speaks to practice and experience. He doesn't mind, though. He’s just glad he's able to give this to her.

She feels so good around him, and Derek tries desperately not to embarrass himself by coming too quickly, but sooner than he’d like he feels himself rushing toward climax.

His hips buck wildly of the bed as he comes inside of Kate, and he feels his eyes flash.

For a terrifying moment Derek panics that he’s let his family's most closely guarded secret slip to a stranger, but then he remembers that Kate is his soulmate. Of course she'll accept him for what he is.

Besides, there's every chance she was too caught up in her own pleasure to even notice his slip-up.

Kate rolls off him, gracefully flipping her hair out of her face. They lay side by side on the bed for a while, catching their breath, before Kate says, sweet and teasing, “Derek, sweetie. I don’t think you even told me what your last name is.”

Derek blushes, and says, “Oh, it’s Hale. Derek Hale.”

It might just be his imagination, but Kate seems to stiffen at the name. Still, she seems relaxed enough a moment later when she says, “Hale? Like that big, old house out in the woods?”

“Yeah,” Derek laughs, a little sheepishly. “That’s, uh. That’s my family.”

Kate makes a considering noise beside him, but doesn’t offer any information about herself in return.

Instead she says, “Listen, cutie. I’m late to meet my brother for something.”

And she stands and starts dressing herself.

“I was supposed to be there twenty minutes ago, but you,” she leans down over him and pinches his cheek, “you are just so distracting, aren’t you?”

“Oh, um. Ok?” Derek says as he pulls his shorts back on, a little reluctantly. This isn’t exactly how he expected his first meeting with his soulmate to end, but it’s not like Kate can help that she made other plans before they met so unexpectedly.

“When will I see you again?” he asks, hoping it doesn’t come out too desperately.

“Oh, soon,” Kate assures him. “Don’t you worry about that.”

 

* * *

 

Later that week, Derek is at home, begging his sister to drive him back to school for a book he left in his locker.

“Ugh, come on, Laura. Please?” he pleads.

“It’s not my fault you’re an idiot who forgot to bring home his textbook the night before a big quiz,” Laura says haughtily.

“I’ll get suspended from the basketball team if I fail two quizzes in a row. Come on, please?”

“That first quiz was your own damn fault,” Laura says.

“How is it my fault Harris won’t accept food poisoning as a valid excuse for missing a quiz?”

Laura snorts. “You’re a _werewolf_ , Der. You don’t _get_ food poisoning. You just skipped school.”

“Well yeah, but I really put my all into that performance,” Derek protests. “I made myself throw up in the nurse's office and everything.”

Laura rolls her eyes.

“Look,” Derek says playing his trump card, “You can either drive me back to get the book tonight, or I’ll wake you up at five am to start begging you to drive me into school early.”

Laura is not a morning person. Laura likes to hit snooze on her alarm until the last possible moment before she absolutely has to force herself out of bed to avoid being late for homeroom. Derek, on the other hand, likes to wake up early and run in the morning to get his thoughts in order before he starts the day.

“ _Fine_ ,” Laura says, knowing from unfortunate experience that Derek doesn’t typically make idle threats. “Let’s go get your stupid book.”

He’s strutting triumphantly out of the school, chemistry book in hand, while Laura rolls her eyes at him from where she’s leaning against the hood of the Camaro, when absolute anguish suddenly rolls through him like a physical pain. He collapses, feeling like his heart is being torn out of his chest, and when he looks up to Laura for help he sees that she’s collapsed, too.

“Laura,” he calls to her, “Laura, what’s happening?”

Laura looks up at him, and her eyes burn alpha red.

“No!” Derek cries, “No, Mom!” He scrambles to his feet, pulling Laura up as he rushes to the car. Laura’s in no condition to drive, dealing with the sudden unexpected rush of alpha power, so Derek grabs the keys and drives home as fast as he can.

They arrive to find their house on fire, firemen surround the house spraying streams of water that seem to do nothing against the flames.

Derek scrambles out of the car and rushes toward the house, only to be caught and held by two deputies.

“Mom!” he cries desperately, “Mom, please!”

“It’s not just Mom,” Laura says hollowly, coming up beside him. “Derek, it’s not just Mom. It’s everybody.”

He stares at her, disbelieving. Everybody. His whole family. They can’t all be gone, they can’t --

“They deserved it!” he hears someone cry, and he looks over to see a wild-eyed woman being dragged away by the Sheriff. “They were monsters, animals! They deserved to die!”

He starts toward her, slowly recognizing her. She looks wild, mad. Nothing like the cool, sophisticated woman he’d met before, but it’s her nonetheless.

“Kate?” he calls, moving toward her, “Kate, what are you doing here?”

When she recognizes him, her face erupts in fury. “You were inside!” she cries, “You’re supposed to be _dead!_ ”

“Kate, what did you do?” Derek pleads.

“Son, do you know this woman?” The Sheriff asks him seriously, and Derek realizes that he really, really doesn’t. Still --

“She-- she’s my soulmate,” he answers, unable to take his eyes off her even as she glares at him with pure fury and hatred.

“Filthy, disgusting dogs like you don’t even _have_ souls!” Kate snarls at him. “You should have died with the rest of your _pack_.” She spits the word like an insult, and Derek realizes that she knows what they are. She knows about werewolves, and she hates them.

“Ms. Argent, you’re going to have to come with me to the station now,” The Sheriff says firmly, and the name sets off alarms in Derek’s head.

“Argent?” he says, “You never told me your name was Argent.”

But she’s being shoved into the back of a squad car and driven away before she can do more than glare at him.

“Derek, who was that? Did she do this?” Laura asks.

“Laura, I think… I think my soulmate just murdered our family.”

 

* * *

 

The weeks that follow are torture.

He and Laura are all that’s left of the Hale pack. They’re orphans, and despite Laura’s new alpha status making them still technically a pack, the sudden loss of their entire pack has them both feeling more than a little like omegas.

There’s a terrifying moment where they have to meet with a social worker, who makes noise about putting Derek into the foster system before Derek and Laura’s frantic pleas convince the overtired, overworked woman that 18-year-old Laura is an acceptable guardian for the 13 months Derek has left before he ages out of the system anyway.

They’re lonely and grieving, and the police keep asking them questions about the fire, about why they were gone when it happened, about their relationship with Kate (about Derek’s relationship with Kate).

Derek tells them about the day he met Kate, about how she’d seen his soul mark and told him that hers matched, about everything that happened after. The police end up adding statutory rape to Kate’s charges, despite Derek telling the police that he consented, of course he did, she had a soul mark that matched his, so that meant she was supposed to love him, right?

The deputy interviewing him gives him a look filled with such pity that Derek feels broken beyond all repair.

They keep asking him why -- the police, the prosecuting lawyers in Kate’s case, even random people he runs into who want the inside scoop on the biggest piece of gossip in town. Why would Kate have done this?

And part of Derek knows, Derek’s family were werewolves and Kate was a hunter, an Argent. They’re supposed to live by a code, but all werewolves know that hunters will use any excuse they can to justify killing a wolf. But the other part of Derek saw the wolf on Kate’s ribs, traced it with his thumb, knows that each curve matches the mark on his own body. Shouldn’t being his soulmate have changed Kate’s mind? Shouldn’t she have loved him anyway?

Why the universe would pair a werewolf and a hunter with one another in the first place is a better question, as far as Derek is concerned. Not why did she kill them, but why is she his soulmate?

He makes it through her trial, makes it through recounting their first meeting in excruciating detail in open court, makes it through seeing her face -- the one he found so beautiful that first day, now ugly and twisted -- every day.

He makes it through listening to her lawyer’s defence. Makes it through hearing about Kate’s crimes as if they were justified, as if they were understandable. Makes it through hearing Kate talked about like someone to be pitied instead of reviled.

He makes it all the way through to the jury declaring her guilty and the judge sentencing her to life in prison before he finally feels like he can breathe again.

Laura hugs him, crying with the relief of seeing Kate found guilty and with the still-raw grief for the family members no jury can bring back to life.

It’s over, he thinks, still sixteen and still naive. He and Laura can move on with their lives now, learn how to be a pack of two.

There’s a little boy and his mother walking past them as they leave the courthouse, but before they get near, the mother veers the boy away, casting Derek a suspicious glance.

It’s not the first time something like that has happened since the fire. He’s had cashiers hurriedly throw up a _Lane Closed_ sign when they see him approaching. His classmates and former friends avoid him at school, and he hears whispers that aren’t pitched low enough to escape his werewolf hearing nearly everywhere he goes.

_What kind of soulmates try to kill each other?_

_You can’t trust someone whose soulmate is evil._

_If his soulmate is a murderer, does that make him one, too?_

_His soul must be poisoned, to share it with someone like that._

He’s tried to bear it, tried to ignore the nagging feeling that if he and Kate are truly soulmates, that must make his soul as guilty as hers, but seeing this little boy being steered away from him like he’s something dangerous is somehow the final straw.

He runs.

He hears Laura call out to him, but he ignores her. She’ll be better off without him anyway. She doesn’t need a brother with a tainted, evil soul dragging her down.

He runs, and he runs, and he doesn’t stop until he physically can’t run anymore. By that time, he’s deep in the forest, far from campgrounds or hiking trails or any trace of human visitors.

He curls himself down beneath a tree stump and closes his eyes to sleep. If he’s lucky, he thinks bitterly, maybe he just won’t wake up. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so listen, I haven't written, like, at all for the past I don't even fucking know how long. And I would love to say that this update means that this fic (or, hell, any of my WIPs) are back on track and will be updating regularly, but that would be a blatant, bold-faced lie.
> 
> But I was trying to find something to read, and got into those moods where nothing is what I'm actually craving, and generally speaking that's a good sign that writing might be a thing that could happen, so.... have another angsty chapter of my soulmate fic?

No human could be reasonably expected to survive the winter -- even the mild California winter -- alone in the wilderness with nothing but the cheap suit he’d worn to court. Derek accepts that. Embraces it, even. He can’t go back to living with Laura, or with anyone, when he’s living with this evil, twisted soul inside of him -- it’s better if he dies here, alone, in the woods where his poisonous soul can’t hurt anyone but him. He can’t quite bring himself to hasten the process, but at least he can stay out here until nature takes its course. The only thing Derek forgot to consider, though, is that he isn’t human.

He’s a werewolf.

As it turns out, a werewolf’s body can survive far more in terms of starvation, exposure, tripping over beehives and sustaining dozens of simultaneous bee stings, a badly broken leg from falling into a ravine, and a slew of other painful and humiliating traumas Derek has endured.

He’s long-since lost track of how long he’s been out here, but he knows it must be at least several years. His hair and beard have grown long and matted. What’s left of his clothes are tattered and discolored. The animals have long-since stopped skittering away from him, having accepted him as part of the natural landscape. He sleeps in a crude lean-to he built several weeks (months, maybe?) into his self-imposed exile, after the rain soaking him as he tried to sleep started to feel more like an annoyance than a much-deserved punishment. It’s on a ridge above a creek where Derek drinks and bathes and catches the occasional fish.

When he first started living out here, he’d tried desperately to teach himself how to make a fire. Failure after failure had left him too frustrated to continue. At best, he’d get the tip of the stick he was rubbing slightly warm to the touch. Once, he got a faint wisp of smoke. Eventually, he’d decided it wasn’t worth it and gave up.

He still tries every now and then, mostly when the nights get freezing cold, but he hasn’t had a cooked meal since he left Beacon Hills.

It’s fine, though. He’s gotten used to it. Raw fish isn’t even all that bad after a while.

He’s used to his lonely life out in the woods. Not that he’s happy, not really, but he isn’t sure he deserves to be. He’s just existing. But at least he knows he isn’t hurting anyone.

It startles him, badly, when one day he hears footsteps near his camp. Not the nimble skittering of animals he’s used to, either. Loud, clumsy, _human_ footsteps. It should be impossible. He’s migrated several times since coming to live out in the woods, driven out of his makeshift shelter by lack of food, or bad storms, or, once, an enormous bear, but he always, _always_ makes sure that he keeps his distance from any hint of civilization.

Derek scrambles to get away, to hide, but in his haste he trips over an exposed root and tumbles downhill, knocking his head as he goes.

He doesn’t remember landing. He blinks, disoriented, to find a pair of whiskey colored eyes peering down at him.

“Dude, are you ok?” a man, a _person_ , is asking him. “You looked like you hit your head pretty hard there. Man, you look rough. How long have you been out here?”

Derek tries to scramble up and get away, knowing he’ll have to run further now that someone can lead more people back to this spot, but the world spins around him, making him feel nauseous. A gentle hand presses against his shoulder, urging him to stay down.

“It’s ok, buddy,” the guy says. His face is zooming in and out of focus as Derek struggles to stay alert. “You’re ok. I found you, and I know the way back. We can get you home.”

* * *

 

Derek doesn’t remember the trip back to civilization. Doesn’t actually remember standing up, if he’s honest.

He vaguely remembers the beep of a walkie, muffled voices and radio static, quiet reassurances from the whiskey-eyed man, footsteps, voices, and the sensation of being lifted on a stretcher.

He wakes up in a bed.

He hasn’t slept in a bed in so long that he lays there paralyzed with fear that one wrong move will send him tumbling over the edge. The hospital bed guard rails don’t do much to alleviate his fear.

The machine next to him starts beeping faster and faster, and he realizes after a moment that it’s measuring his heart rate.

Soon, there’s a woman rushing into his room.

“Oh, you’re awake!” she says, sounding relieved. “You’re in the hospital, Mr…..” she trails off, clearly not knowing his name.

Derek doesn’t offer it.

His eyes dart around nervously. Maybe he can still get out of here, run back to the woods before he has the chance to ruin anybody’s life.

“You were found in the woods by a hiker,” the nurse -- Derek thinks she’s a nurse -- tells him, a bit unnecessarily. “Do you know how long you were out there? It must have been a long time.”

Derek doesn’t answer. He needs to get out of here, needs to run away before anyone realizes that he’s the boy whose soulmate killed his family.

“You were pretty well hydrated when you came in, which is good,” she tells him, when it becomes clear he’s not going to answer her. “You must have found a good source of running water. But you’re pretty undernourished. The doctor’s going to give you some diet recommendations before you leave, alright?”

Derek sits up slightly and peers over the side of the bed to see how high it is, then immediately lays back down. It’s not terribly far, but the ground looks hard and unforgiving, nothing like the soft dirt and fallen leaves he’s used to falling onto.

“Are you feeling ok, hon? You look nervous,” the nurse says. “Look, you came in as a John Doe. Is there anyone you need us to call? Anyone who could come and get you?”

Derek looks at her for a moment, then shakes his head sharply.

“Can you tell me your name, at least?” she asks.

Derek fidgets with the blanket, avoiding the nurse’s eyes until she sighs and says, “I’ll let the doctor know you’re awake.”

She leaves Derek alone.

Derek brings a hand up to scratch at his beard, but it’s gone. His hand lands on bare skin. He lifts his hand to the top of his head to find his hair has been shorn, too. Not quite all the way, but it’s been buzzed short -- probably too tangled and matted to have left it any longer.

He’s still rubbing his hand across his scalp when there’s a tentative knock on the door.

“Hey, dude,” says the guy standing there. “You’re looking better! I barely recognize you.”

The guy’s grinning. It takes Derek a moment, but he places him. Those same whiskey eyes are the ones he saw in the woods before passing out.

The silence must drag on too long for the guy’s comfort, because his smile falters a bit.

“You do, uh… you remember me, right?” The guys asks nervously.

Derek doesn’t answer.

“Right, um, that’s cool,” the guys says. “I mean, you were pretty out of it back there, and then you were, like, unconscious and stuff, so…”

Someone else clears their throat out in the hallway.

“Right! Not the point. Um, the point is, there’s someone here who’d like to see you,” the guy says before taking a step back and letting a woman and an older man dressed like a sheriff through.

She looks familiar, but the memory is fuzzy, out of place. He stares at her, a name pushing its way toward the tip of his tongue but Derek can’t quite recognize her until she says, voice rough like she’s been crying or like she’s about to, “Derek, you nimrod. I thought you were dead.”

Laura, he realizes, but so much older than when he’d last seen her.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice croaking over the first words he’s uttered since he left her,”I should be. I should have died instead of them.”

“Don’t say that,” Laura says harshly, pulling him into a hug. He bears it stiffly, no longer used to human contact. “Don’t you ever say that. What happened wasn’t your fault.”

She’s lying, Derek thinks, even if she doesn’t realize it or doesn’t want to. It was his poisoned soul that got their family killed, and he wonders how Laura can even stand to look at him.

“Come home,” she asks him, pleading. “You’re my brother, and I need you.”

And Derek doesn’t know how to refuse her.

**Author's Note:**

> The end.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Ha ha, psych! No, there's totally gonna be another chapter. Or several. IDK. Come nag me for updates on [tumblr](http://minervamagooglie.tumblr.com/)


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